


301 Hours

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:31:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Chromonym’s prompt: "Cobb/Yusuf- Cobb offers Yusuf a job. With Yusuf's help, he wants to quit somnaicin and start dreaming naturally again. Yusuf is a bit of a loner and he doesn't relish the idea of spending all this time with Cobb and his family, but he takes the job because it's a challenge. Nobody has ever dreamed naturally again after using somnaicin. At first, they're not particularly close and they don't have much in common. An odd friendship develops between them and it turns into a tentative romance."</p>
            </blockquote>





	301 Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Chromonym told me to do it! Blame her!  
> Notes: Set post-Inception by a eighteen months. Approximately 6600 words . . . so . . . many . . . drabbles . . . seriously, I’m not counting these fucking drabbles.

93 Hours

  
  
Taking another impressed glance around the neighborhood—two cars in every driveway and neatly manicured lawns surrounding each house—Yusuf smiles distantly, then knocks on Cobb’s door.  
  
Almost immediately that door is yanked open. The man behind it looks rather worse for wear than Yusuf remembers. The only thing about him that seems unchanged is the directness of his intensely blue eyes.  
  
Glaring, Cobb nevertheless stands aside in wordless invitation.  
  
“I’m not paying you to be late,” is the first thing he says, to which Yusuf snorts and replies:  
  
“You’re barely paying me at all.” And with that, he steps inside.  
  


*

  
  
The kitchen is brightly lit by nothing more than sunlight, the cheer of which doesn’t seem to touch the haggard,  _hag-ridden_  man across from Yusuf.  
  
They haven’t spoken since the doorway, nor had Cobb invited him to sit. Yusuf had, as always, taken the initiative and seated himself. Sure enough, Cobb had instantly joined him, glaring at his hands, which are now clasped together on the kitchen table like a man in rather angry, aggressive prayer.  
  
Finally, Yusuf is the one who breaks the tense, but not quite uncomfortable silence between them.  
  
“So, how long since you last slept?”  
  


*

  
  
“ . . . weaning myself off it. But that didn’t work—at least not noticeably. So I tried going cold turkey. That was three days before I called you.” Cobb meets Yusuf’s gaze grimly. “So I guess it’s been about ninety-six hours since I slept.”  
  
“Hmm. You shouldn’t have waited even  _that_  long,” Yusuf notes, scribbling quickly in Arabic. “You’re already edging toward a psychotic break.”  
  
“Don’t you think I know that?” Cobb stands up and paces to his refrigerator. Leans against it, and watches Yusuf warily and intently. “I can’t sleep without Somnacin, but when I use it . . . I dream about Mal again.”  
  


*

  
  
“Well?” Cobb asks when he finishes recounting the dreams in which he’s seen his late wife—the de rigueur stresses of an average single father’s life seem to exacerbate these dreams, so far as Yusuf can tell, as well as Cobb’s deep, continuing grief.  
  
“Well,” he says, eyeing Cobb thoughtfully. “It’s very worrying, to say the least.”  
  
Cobb nods as if waiting for more. When nothing else is forthcoming, he snorts ruefully. “Is that all,  _Dr_. Dadali? ‘Worrying’?”  
  
Yusuf shrugs. “ _C’est la vie,_  Mr. Cobb.” He stands up, flipping his notepad closed. “I’ll need to see your bedroom.”  
  
Cobb snorts again.  
  


98 Hours

  
  
Yusuf’s just finishing setting up Cobb’s bedroom—huge, and strangely bare of personal touches, except for a few framed photos of his rather gorgeous children—when the sounds of their voices drifts upstairs.  
  
“—had  _puppies_!” A boy’s voice squeals happily, rising above the general din.  
  
“I’ll bet they were cute, sweetheart,” Cobb’s murmured reply is accompanied by a fond laugh. It makes Yusuf pause while making a last, minute change to the PASIV’s monitoring system.  
  
 _I’ve never heard him laugh before. I didn’t think he was even capable,_  he thinks wonderingly . . . then nearly jabs himself with the needle for the second cannula.  
  


*

  
  
“Who’s that, Daddy?”  
  
The younger child, James, asks that as Yusuf comes downstairs. He’s in his father’s arms, wide-eyed and unafraid. The girl, Phillippa, frowns.  
  
Cobb hefts his son a little higher, kissing the boy on the cheek till he laughs and squirms. “This’s a friend of Daddy’s. His name is Mr. Dadali. Yusuf, this is Phillippa and James.”  
  
Yusuf smiles limply. He’s not used to children. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”  
  
“You talk funny,” James says then giggles, hiding his face in his father’s neck.  
  
Phillippa merely watches Yusuf silently, with her mother’s solemn, grey-blue eyes.  
  


*

  
  
“Have you eaten, yet?” Cobb asks after Yusuf’s fielded about five thousand questions from James.  
  
“I was thinking I might stop at the Jack In The Box I passed—”  
  
“I wouldn’t wish Crap In A Box on anyone.” Cobb hesitates before continuing, grim and insistent once more. “You’re welcome to have dinner here. It’s nothing fancy: pasta and fish sticks.”  
  
“Fishsticks!” James crows happily, and Yusuf shoves his hands in his pockets, aware of Phillippa’s old-soul gaze.  
  
“I wouldn’t want to impose—“  
  
“It’s not an imposition.” Cobb’s squint turns steely and Yusuf sighs.  
  
“Fishsticks!” James crows again.  
  


98 Hours

  
  
“Is he gonna stay with us?” Phillippa—or Pip, as Cobb calls her—asks quietly during dinner, staring into her pasta and frowning. Before Yusuf can say no (he has a room reserved at the airport Ramada) Cobb answers for him.  
  
“Yes.” He glances obliquely at Yusuf before going on. “He and I are working on a . . . project and he needs to be close by.”  
  
“Oh,” Phillippa says glumly. Then James asks Yusuf how to say “fishsticks” in “Abaric.”  
  
“ _Fishsticks_ ,” Yusuf says distractedly, and James chortles to himself, shoving another  _fishstick_ into his mouth and chewing it noisily.  
  


100 Hours

  
  
“I didn’t realize I was quite so fascinating,” Yusuf murmurs.  
  
Cobb’s been lingering in the bedroom doorway for several minutes. Now he enters, sitting on his bed. “You’re not. I was just wondering what you’re writing about me.”  
  
Yusuf—who’s indeed writing about Cobb, in “Abaric”—grunts. “How do you know I’m writing about you? I could be writing a to-do list.”  
  
“I’m not paying you to write to-do lists, Yusuf.”  
  
Looking up with a sharp retort on his lips, Yusuf notes Cobb’s pallor, the dark circles around his eyes, and the weary wildness therein—  
  
“Let’s get started,” he says, all business.  
  


101 Hours

  
  
“ _Gendarmes! Open up! Now_!”  
  
The projections are waiting for Yusuf as soon as he opens his eyes in Cobb’s dream.  _Have been lying in wait_  since Cobb went under it would seem, as Yusuf had been seconds behind him.  
  
They pound on the door to a very expensive-looking hotel suite done in cream and sienna. On one creamy, comfortable looking sofa sits Cobb, head in his hands. From another, Cobb’s beautiful, dead wife watches Yusuf with Phillippa’s eyes.   
  
“Help him. Please,” she says with desperate dignity. Then the  _gendarmes_  burst into the suite, bristling with firearms. They open fire—  
  


*

  
  
Yusuf bolts upright in his chair, panting and shaking.  
  
On the bed, Cobb’s still under, breathing evenly. Yusuf carefully removes his own cannula and takes up his notepad once more. He means to write a brief description of the events of Cobb’s dream and his own unceremonious exit. Instead he finds himself simply watching Cobb sleep.  
  
Some of the tension-lines have smoothed out, and Cobb actually looks like the sort of boyishly handsome man with whom any woman would have fallen in love. . . .  
  
 _Help him,_  Mallorie Cobb’s shade had plead.  _Please_.  
  
“I’ll try,” Yusuf promises her. “I shall certainly try.”  
  


*

  
  
When Cobb wakes up, minutes later, Yusuf is once more all business, and writing on his notepad.  
  
“She didn’t seem as . . . aggressive as she did the last time I visited your subconscious.” Yusuf glances at a yawning, stretching Cobb.   
  
“No,” Cobb says. His eyes are calm, clear. They survey Yusuf keenly, and Yusuf looks back at his notepad, flustered. “She isn’t. It’s just . . . hard for me to see her every night, then wake up and—I need to move on. I  _have_  to get off Somnacin.  _Can_  you help me?”  
  
Yusuf nods. “I can. I  _will_.”  
  
Cobb’s shoulders sag in relief.  
  


110 hours

  
  
“Are you still asleep?”  
  
Yusuf rolls on his side, away from the voice. Of course, it follows him. “It’s almost seven o’clock, you know. Pip and I have to be at school by eight.”  
  
“Fascinating,” Yusuf yawns, cracking eyelids that are still heavy with the weight of jet lag and too little sleep. In front of him, James Cobb is bouncing in place, looking far too excited for Yusuf’s tastes.  
  
“Have a good day,” he mumbles, closing his eyes again. But James starts tugging on his hand. _Hard_.  
  
“C’ _mon_ , or you’ll miss breakfast!”  
  
“How tragic,” Yusuf mutters. “Go  _away_ , child!”  
  


*

  
  
James doesn’t take “go away” for an answer.  
  
He drags a shuffling, bleary Yusuf—still dressed in last night’s clothes; his luggage is at the airport Ramada—out of the guest bedroom and downstairs.  
  
The Cobb kitchen is once more flooded with light, and the smells of an American breakfast (pancakes, eggs, and some sort of sausage) fill the house.  
  
“You look like hell,” Cobb notes from the table, in the midst of serving Pip eggs. Yusuf almost tells him to stuff it, when he notices the fourth place setting. And the coffee.  
  
“Jet lag,” he says, taking his seat.  
  


*

  
  
“Listen, Cobb. . . .”  
  
Cobb looks up from the dishes. The children have gone to get ready, and it’s just he and Yusuf in the kitchen.  
  
“I was thinking about what you said. About me staying here—“  
  
“How was the room, by the way?”  
  
“What—? Oh, very comfortable.”  
  
“Good.” The silence spins out between them. Finally, as the last dish goes in the drying rack: “Let me know if you need anything.”  
  
Yusuf sighs. “I will.”  
  
And that’s the end of a conversation that never really happens.  
  
While Cobb takes his children to school, Yusuf goes back to the Ramada to get his things.  
  


112 Hours

  
  
Yusuf’s luggage—all six large cases of it—is mainly lab equipment, and a disassembled (the better to get it through Customs, my dear) PASIV.  
  
Cobb eyes the cases with trepidation, but helps Yusuf shuttle them to the guest room without comment or complaint.  
  
When the last case crowds the modest guestroom, Cobb leans against the doorway, scratching his head and looking bemused.  
  
“You need any help getting set up?”  
  
“Hmm . . . no, I should have everything situated by noon,” Yusuf says, already mentally shifting furniture and setting up his lab-space. He doesn’t even notice when Cobb takes his leave, almost smiling.  
  


116 Hours

  
  
When Cobb next pokes his head in, Yusuf is wrestling with the dismantled PASIV on his unmade bed.  
  
“Having trouble?”  
  
Yusuf heaves an annoyed sigh. “I’m a Chemist, not an Engineer! Bloody damned thing!” He tosses the motor onto the coverlet.  
  
 _Actually_  smiling, Cobb steps into the guestroom, hands on his hips as he studies the pile of parts. “I could have that working in half an hour.”  
  
And without waiting for a reply, he sits next to Yusuf, brushing Yusuf’s hands away from the PASIV. They both jump at a small jolt of static electricity.  
  
Cobb goes to work.  
  


115 Hours

  
  
Using Cobb’s own supply of Somnacin for a base (and having sent the man out on errands to procure some other chemicals, legal and not) Yusuf’s already cooking up a batch of mildly altered Somnacin for Cobb to test later when the children get home.  
  
James hurtles up the stairs and past the guestroom with an ear-piercing: “Hi, Yusuf!” (Cobb had given up getting the boy to call Yusuf  _Mr. Dadali_ ).  
  
A minute later, Pip makes her own more sedate way past the guestroom. She doesn’t even glance in, let alone say  _hi_.  
  
This shouldn’t bother Yusuf, but it does.  
  


118 Hours

  
  
During dinner, Pip is withdrawn, though she does steal little looks at Yusuf when she thinks he won’t notice.  
  
Oblivious, Cobb and James carry the conversation, which is about many things, including Mrs. Laeding’s new puppies, why James shouldn’t trade his healthy lunches for junk food, and how learning addition is applicable to daily life.  
  
Yusuf merely eats (potatoes, green beans, and roast chicken) and listens. When the children excuse themselves to complete their homework, Yusuf tentatively asks Cobb if he’d like help with the dishes.  
  
Cobb says no, but thanks him anyway.  
  
It feels like progress, of a sort.  
  


122 Hours

  
  
“Isn’t the point of this to  _stop_  using Somnacin?” Cobb demands as Yusuf swabs his arm.  
  
“Your first instinct was correct, you know? To wean yourself off the drug. I propose we re-try that, gradually changing the nature of the Somnacin until it’s completely the sedative component. As your body relearns how to sleep and dream without the Somnacin, we will lessen the dosage of the sedative until you are sleeping without inducement.”  
  
Cobb frowns just like his daughter. “And how long will  _that_  take?”  
  
Yusuf readies the needle. “I don’t know,” he says plainly, then injects the serum.  
  


121 Hours

  
  
In part, Somnacin works as a  _strong_  hallucinogen.  
  
But without the PASIV to direct the dreamer’s REM, he will—occasionally—toss and turn, sweat and shake for several tense hours before finally dragging himself to a state of semi-lucid half-consciousness.  
  
“Gotta . . . get Pip ready for daycare, Mal,” Cobb slurs, sky-blue eyes feverishly trying to focus.  
  
“I’ll get Pip ready . . . Dom . . . you just lie down and rest.”  
  
Suddenly those loopy blue eyes gain brilliant focus.  
  
“I love you. So much,” Cobb says desperately. Then he’s gone again, lost to his feverish half-sleep, and leaving Yusuf to brood over his notes.  
  


126 Hours

  
  
During the night, Yusuf takes Cobb’s pulse—not even close to normal, but still  _better_ —only to have his wrist grabbed with surprising strength.  
  
“Stay with me, baby. Please?” Cobb’s eyes don’t even open, for which Yusuf is grateful. “Please don’t leave me anymore. . . .”  
  
Yusuf sighs and, when repeated tries that stop just shy of breaking fingers don’t release Cobb’s iron grip, sits on the bed gingerly. Cobb immediately snugs against Yusuf’s hip, rolling over to sling one sleep-loose arm over Yusuf’s thighs.  
  
“Love you, baby,” Cobb sighs happily.  
  
 _It’s going to be a long night,_  Yusuf thinks, prying futilely at Cobb’s fingers.  
  


129 Hours

  
  
Yusuf fell asleep, which was unexpected.  
  
He awakens in  _someone’s_  arms, which is even less expected.  
  
There’s a thigh between his own.  
  
There’s an erection poking against his arse.  
  
There’s another erection forming between his legs.  
  
And that  _someone_? Is beginning to stir.  
  
This is not even in the running for  _good_.  
  
Cobb sighs in Yusuf’s hair then rolls onto his back. Yusuf jumps nimbly to his feet. Aside from that one problematic portion of himself, he’s not remotely stiff. . . .  
  
When Cobb’s eyes finally open, Yusuf’s safely in his chair, notepad strategically placed in his lap.  
  
“Good morning!” he says brightly.  
  


*

  
  
Cobb stares into the cheerful yellow sunlight for a few minutes before grunting a terse good morning.  
  
“Did you dream?” Yusuf asks tentatively, uncertain which answer he dreads more.  
  
“Yeah.” Cobb sighs again. “Dreamt I was laying in bed with Mal, and. . . .”  
  
Going cold all over, Yusuf clutches his notepad. “And?”  
  
“. . . and it felt good. To hold her again. To not be alone.” Cobb shakes his head and looks over at Yusuf wryly. “We didn’t fuck, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
It’s all Yusuf can think to say with Cobb staring at him like that.  
  


130 Hours

  
  
Fresh out of the shower, Yusuf stands in front of the bathroom mirror.  
  
He, himself, now looks tired and harried: his eyes are starry, his cheeks are hollow, his hair’s a tangled mess, and his beard is grown out much longer than he usually likes it. He looks . . . just like his father—  
  
“Yusuf! I have to  _tinkle_!”  
  
Sartled, Yusuf clutches his towel tight about his waist. He opens the door and James (clad only in Superman underwear) scampers in. He’s already “tinkling” before Yusuf can absent himself.  
  
With one last distracted glance at his reflection, Yusuf leaves James to it.  
  


131

  
  
“Maybe you should take today off.”  
  
Yusuf looks up from his third cup of coffee to find Cobb leaning against the kitchen counter watching him with open concern. “What?”  
  
Cobb rolls his eyes, but looks amused. “You’ve been going pretty much non-stop for almost three days. The last thing we need around here is two basketcases running on no sleep.”  
  
“Really?” Yusuf smiles a little, and finishes his coffee in one long gulp. “And what shall I do with my day off?”  
  
This is worth a laugh from Cobb. “Are you kidding? It’s Saturday, in Los Angeles, in the summer: go to the mall.”  
  


132 Hours

  
  
“We should go to Lego Land! And Orange Julius!”  
  
James bounces happily, like an excited tadpole, and Yusuf smiles.  
  
“Sweetie, this is Mr. Dadali’s day off. He probably wants to be by himself,” Cobb tells the boy gently.  
  
“But—who’s gonna show him all the fun places, daddy?”  
  
“Well, I’m certain he can find some fun places on his own. . . .”  
  
James approaches Yusuf and slips his own warm, small, sticky hand into Yusuf’s, who squats so they’re eye-to-eye.   
  
“It’ll be  _booooooorrrrring_  all by yourself.” James says solemnly. “We should come with you.”  
  
Glancing at Cobb—who helpfully shrugs—Yusuf sighs and says: “Er.”  
  


133 Hours

  
  
“The mall” has more shops under one roof than Yusuf’s ever seen, and he can’t help but goggle. At his side, holding his hand once more, James points out places of interest (to a five year old, anyway) and gives Yusuf a bit of history about each.  
  
“. . . and there’s Bun ‘N’ Burger . . . I threw up in there, too!”  
  
“You throw up everywhere,” Pip notes with disdain. James cheerfully ignores her.  
  
“Is there any place  _you_  want to see, Yusuf?” Cobb cuts into the running commentary to ask. Yusuf stops goggling to look over at him.  
  
“Well, there is  _one_  place. . . .”  
  


134 Hours

  
  
“I’m a miracle worker,” their stylist says smugly. “Now, if only we could fix your wardrobes. . . .”  
  
James, of course, looks adorable, his formerly shaggy blond hair trimmed and shaped around his elfin face, out of which his father’s startling blue eyes shine.  
  
But Yusuf barely recognizes  _himself_. With his beard gone, he looks hardly old enough for university, let alone for the PhD. he now carries. His formerly riotous curls are gone, replaced by a trendy SoCal crewcut that’s gelled every which way.  
  
(Arthur would be so proud.)  
  
“We look very handsome,” James says with grave dignity. The stylist snorts.  
  


*

  
  
When Yusuf and James escape, hand in hand, to the waiting area, Cobb and Pip are looking through outdated magazines, and so don’t notice them.  
  
Then James clears his throat, rather unsubtly and they look up.  
  
“Hey, Sport! You look good!” Cobb enthuses, his eyes ticking back and forth between James and Yusuf, who flushes for no reason.  
  
“I do. Now, if only we could fix my wardrobe,” James hints in an equally heavy-handed manner. Both Pip and Cobb roll their eyes, but Cobb’s are the only ones that come back to rest on Yusuf, confused and a little discomfitted.  
  


*

  
  
There’s an indoor rollercoaster, which James insists they  _have_  to try.  
  
Yusuf and Pip decline, leaving Cobb and James to brave  _The Beast._  
  
The silence that falls between Yusuf and Pip is not remotely comfortable. Neither of them tries to break it, and when the ride finally ends, they’re both relieved.  
  
The barker asks if Yusuf would like a photo of his “husband and son.” Yusuf blushes, fumbles out three crumpled dollars, and takes the photograph.   
  
“ _Gross_ -tastic,” Pip says, looking away.  
  
In the photo Cobb looks gamely resigned, and James is clearly heaving. But his eyes are shining and happy.  
  


140 Hours

  
  
“Don’t you  _ever_  stop working?”  
  
Cobb. No doubt leaning in the doorway. Yusuf doesn’t even look up from his work. “You aren’t paying me to stop working.”  
  
“Ah.” Cobb laughs, small and uncomfortable. “Sorry about that . . . I can be an asshole, sometimes. Especially when I haven’t been sleeping. . . .”  
  
Yusuf finally looks up. Cobb’s indeed leaning in the doorway, barefoot and strangely vulnerable looking.  
  
They measure each other for long moments, till Cobb turns to leave.  
  
“Wait—“ Yusuf half-stands. “Would you like to see the figures on the latest compound?”  
  
Cobb’s halfway across the room before Yusuf finishes the question.  
  


146 Hours

  
  
“Say, uh. You didn’t have to do that.”  
  
Yusuf glances around, nearly up to his elbows in suds. Cobb is leaning in the kitchen archway—really the man has a talent for propping up architecture.  
  
“It’s a pleasure to help. And a pleasure to eat dinner that’s not Kenyan takeaway,” Yusuf says truthfully, smiling.  
  
Cobb seems a little chagrined. Then he smiles back. “What say I finish the dishes and you go . . . read James a story? He requested you, specifically.”  
  
He holds up a children’s book entitled:  _Good Night, Moon._  
  
“I . . . alright,” Yusuf says uncertainly, rinsing off and drying his hands.  
  


*

  
  
“’. . . goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.’”  
  
Yusuf looks at James, who—seconds ago—had been awake and wide-eyed. Now, the boy’s face is slack with sleep. He looks eerie, lying so still—and eerily like his father.  
  
Yusuf gently, carefully brushes the bangs off the boy’s forehead. James doesn’t stir.  
  
“For a man with no experience, that was a pretty good job,” Cobb whispers from the doorway, no doubt propping  _it_  up, too.  
  
But Yusuf can’t take his eyes off of James.  
  
“He’s so . . .  _small_ ,” he murmurs.  _So tiny, vulnerable, and perfect_.  
  
“Yep,” Cobb agrees good-naturedly. “But trust me: they get bigger.”  
  


*

  
  
As Yusuf watches, Cobb comes over and kisses James’s forehead.  
  
“They definitely get bigger. Too big for bedtime stories,” Cobb says, gazing wistfully at his son. “Pip outgrew them two years ago, after Mal passed on.”  
  
They watch James sleep in silence for a few minutes. Then Cobb nudges Yusuf companionably. “Wanna get a beer?”  
  
“Yes,” Yusuf laughs. “I’d like that very much.”  
  


148 Hours

  
  
“ . . . so then, Arthur looks down at the stain on his vest, looks back at Pip, and says: “Pip, sweetheart, Spaghetti-O’s just do not go with Uncle Arthur’s suit.”  
  
Yusuf chuckles, taking another sip of his third  _Dos Equis_. He’s quite buzzed, and doesn’t care. “And what did he do next?”  
  
“What  _could_  he do next? He finished feeding Pip her lunch, then used half a bottle of stain remover on his vest.” Cobb snorts, taking a sip of his  _Heineken_. His eyes are bright and fond as he recollects his daughter’s toddlerhood. “He never  _did_  get that stain completely out.”  
  


152 Hours

  
  
Unlike last night, Cobb’s sleep is relatively peaceful.  
  
But when he finally slips into REM sleep, he begins to toss and moan. Yusuf’s about to risk taking Cobb’s pulse when he notices that Cobb’s moans—soft and breathy—are not exactly unhappy.  
  
They sound downright  _wanton_.  
  
The horrified suspicion forming in Yusuf’s mind is confirmed when Cobb rolls onto his back; the front of his sweatpants is distended.  
  
After an eternity of moans, sighs, and writhing, Cobb stiffens then relaxes, a wetspot rapidly forming at his crotch.  
  
Yusuf drops back into his chair.  
  
Cobb is quiescent for the rest of the night.  
  


158 Hours

  
  
Cobb is mortified when he wakes up and discovers the state of himself.  
  
“Jesus, I’m sorry. Though I guess it’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” he says, not looking at Yusuf, who smiles blandly, though his stomach’s churning.   
  
“Quite true. I ran a dream den, after all.”  
  
Cobb risks a look at Yusuf. “’Ran’? Past tense?”  
  
Yusuf shrugs. “It’s a long story. So, you  _did_  get several hours of sleep, much of it was REM, and you  _did_  dream, which is good. Was Mal there?”  
  
“No.” Cobb says, looking away again. He refuses to be drawn further on the subject.  
  


163 Hours

  
  
Yusuf spends much of his day modifying the serum—fine-tuning it while lowering the levels of Somnacin therein.  
  
The past two nights could have easily been a fluke, but Yusuf doesn’t think they were. Between the serum, and Cobb’s obviously strong desire to be free of his Somnacin addiction, something quite unique is going on.  
  
In his entire career, he’s never heard of anyone kicking a Somnacin habit. Especially since that habit facilitates working with the PASIV, giving the dreamer the ability to shape their dreams, instead of wallowing in the formless mental goo of the subconscious. It—  
  
“Mr. Dadali?”  
  


*

  
  
Yusuf looks up to see Pip poking her head ‘round his door, looking grim and determined.  
  
Like a young woman prepared for a showdown.  
  
He sighs, reflecting that she and James couldn’t be less alike if they tried. “Hello, Pip. How may I help you?”  
  
Pip bites her lip and enters the room: a slim girl, tall for her age, with long, light brown hair curtaining her pretty face.  
  
“I need to know why daddy brought you to live with us,” she says in a tone that implies she’ll brook no evasions or half answers. “Is he . . . gonna die, like  _maman_  did?”  
  


*

  
  
“I . . . think that is a matter you should discuss with your father, Phillippa,” Yusuf says carefully, and Pip tosses her head like a headstrong philly.  
  
“I asked daddy and he said that nothing was wrong. But he’s  _lying_! Parents aren’t supposed to _lie_!” She insists, her little face turning pink with vehemence. “I  _know_  something’s wrong with him, and he told  _you_ , but he won’t tell me and James!”  
  
A spike of something almost painful grips Yusuf’s chest, and for the first time, he feels a strange sort of kinship with Cobb’s serious little daughter.  
  
But what to tell her?  
  


164 Hours

  
  
Yusuf is the one to lean against the doorway, this time, watching Cobb dry the lunch dishes.  
  
Lunch had been a silent, tense affair, with only James talking, leaving Cobb to cast bewildered glances at a brooding Pip. Yusuf had tried to keep up some sort of conversation with James, but hadn’t done much more than nod and make noises in the right places.  
  
Now, with James off napping and Pip finishing the last of her weekend homework, Yusuf figures there’s no better time to confront Cobb about Pip’s accusations.  
  


*

  
  
“. . . so, I put her off for a bit, but she’ll doubtlessly come asking again. She was quite upset,” Yusuf adds, and Cobb nods, leaning back against the counter.  
  
“I’ll have a talk with her about bothering you. Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be—there’s nothing to be sorry about. I think you  _should_  have a talk with her, only. . . .” Yusuf pauses, taking a breath before taking the plunge. “I think you should tell her—without too many details, of course—what’s going on.”  
  
Cobb blinks. Then blinks again. “Let me get this straight, Yusuf—you want me to tell  _my daughter_  I’m a goddamn  _drug addict_?”  
  


*

  
  
Yusuf sighs. He had easily predicted Cobb would react thus.  
  
“I want you to tell her what she already knows: that you’re sick, and you’re doing everything in your power to get well.” Yusuf crosses the room till he’s standing directly before Cobb, who neither looks nor moves away. He even dares a hand on Cobb’s shoulder. “As it stands, she knows she’s being lied to, and it’s upsetting her greatly.”  
  
Cobb shrugs Yusuf’s hand off. “That’s all well and good in theory, but in practice? I don’t like scaring and scarring my kids any more than I already have.”  
  


*

  
  
“Listen, Dominic—“  
  
“No,  _you_  listen.” Cobb’s practically stiff with anger now, hectic roses blooming in his cheeks. “You don’t understand the bind I’m in, Yusuf—don’t even have children—“  
  
“But I’ve  _been a child_. And I know what it’s like to have a parent who’s too cowardly to tell the truth when it really matters,” Yusuf says quietly, and before he can think better of it.  
  
Cobb looks positively shocked. Then guilty. Then his face closes completely.  
  
“Fuck you,” he says lowly, shouldering past Yusuf on his way out of the kitchen. “And don’t tell me how to raise my kids.”  
  


170 Hours

  
  
At dinner, even James feels the tension, and holds his peace.  
  
He keeps glancing at everyone—especially his father, looking for social cues that Cobb’s too closed off to give. Pip, for her part, is visibly angry, stabbing at her food as if it’s offended her. She won’t look at anyone.  
  
Yusuf eats quickly, methodically, avoiding Cobb’s cold glares and James's questioning glances, and excuses himself as soon as he’s done.  
  
He feels three sets of eyes on him as he leaves the quiet kitchen, and for the first time since he arrived, he’s glad to be away from the Cobbs.  
  


175 Hours

  
  
Cobb and Yusuf go about their nightly routine in stoic silence. Though when Cobb lies down, he catches Yusuf’s gaze before shutting his eyes.  
  
Midnight, now, and Yusuf still doesn’t know what to make of that. All he knows is that Cobb’s breathing and pulse are elevated and he’s practically drenched in sweat. In fact, if Cobb were a normal sleeper/dreamer, Yusuf might say he’s having a  _nightmare_. . . .  
  
 _The question becomes, dare I wake him, or let him sleep through?_  
  
When Cobb starts moaning his children’s names in tones of abject bereavement that decides Yusuf, for good or for ill.  
  


181 Hours

  
  
Dawn finds them sitting in Cobb’s dark kitchen, nursing cups of coffee.  
  
Cobb’d refused to talk about his nightmare, insisting instead that he wouldn’t go back to sleep.  
  
He looks almost as haggard and haunted as he had when Yusuf first showed up . . . was it only four days ago?  
  
“You’re right, you know.” When Cobb breaks the silence, it’s quietly, reluctantly. “I  _am_  a coward. But I have good reason.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Yusuf acknowledges. “But no excuses.”  
  
“No. No excuses,” Cobb agrees, his mouth pursing ruefully. Then he smiles, just as ruefully. “So which parent lied to you? Mommy or Daddy?”  
  


*

  
  
“My mother,” Yusuf answers. Having advocated honesty, he can hardly start telling lies of omission. “She had brain cancer. Terminal. And she didn’t tell my father or me. Just . . . collapsed one day . . . we didn’t know why. But the hospital had a file on her. This thick.” Yusuf holds up his fingers an inch apart. “Anyway, she never woke up again. Eventually . . . I had to sign the forms for her to be taken off life support. By that point, my father had had several strokes, and was in no state to decide such matters.”  
  
“How old were you?”  
  
“Nineteen.”  
  
“ _Fuck_.”  
  
“Indeed.”  
  


184 Hours

  
  
Cobb’s house is a beautiful one, graceful and austere.  
  
After an hour of standing outside said house and studying it, Yusuf shuffles up the walk with more than a few flutters of trepidation, wondering what reception he’ll get when he shows his face inside.  
  
He never finds out. He’s halfway up the walk when Pip flings the door open and runs flat-out toward him. She leaps from at least five feet away but Yusuf, though surprised, catches her nonetheless.  
  
She hugs him  _tight_.  
  
“Thank you for helping my daddy get well,” she whispers, her heart pounding fiercely against his own.  
  


198 Hours

  
  
As Yusuf prepares the serum for Cobb that night, he can feel the other’s eyes lingering on him.  
  
“Paint a picture. It’ll last longer,” he says wryly.  
  
“But it wouldn’t do you justice.”  
  
When Yusuf looks up, startled, he catches a rather solemn look on Cobb’s face.  
  
“Hey, I never thanked you for that good advice you gave me . . . thanks.”  
  
Yusuf grins. “You’ll have to be more specific, Cobb . . . I give a lot of good advice.”  
  
“One ‘thank you’ is all you’re getting, Yusuf.” Cobb winces when the needle pricks his skin. Then he’s off to dreamland, with a smile.  
  


215 Hours

  
  
Cobb’s gone to run errands and Yusuf’s watching the children:  
  
“Yusuf?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Are you gonna be my other daddy?”  
  
Both Yusuf and Pip look across the kitchen table at James, who’s still coloring in Batman’s cape.  
  
Yusuf colors. “I, er, beg your pardon?”  
  
James looks up at Yusuf as if he’s being unutterably dense. “You know. My  _other daddy_. Like Joey Brancato-Storr. He’s got  _two_  daddies.”  
  
“Stupid.” Pip elbows James and resumes her own coloring. Robin’s sporting a bright green cape and pink tights, so far. “Joey’s daddies are in  _love_.”  
  
Now James looks confused. “And daddy and Yusuf aren’t?”  
  


228 Hours

  
  
Yusuf’s own snoring wakes him out of a light, troubled doze just after midnight.  
  
He snorts sleepily and stretches his aching, tired bones in the comfortable-but-not-really chair and his notepad slides to the floor. He picks it up, thinking that sooner or later, he’ll have to get more and better sleep. Sneaking a few hours here and there isn’t cutting it, and—  
  
—sitting up, he finds himself entranced by the way the lamplight falls on Cobb’s face, rendering it ageless and innocent. Almost as innocent as James’s.  
  
Yusuf catches himself sighing and looks away, calling himself all kinds of fool.  
  


236 Hours

  
  
In the morning:  
  
“Is there, uh—that is, I hope I’m not keeping you from something—or someone in Mombasa.”  
  
Yusuf’s snorts, and continues checking Cobb’s pulse. Slow and steady. “Not at all. Luckily for you, I was . . . hmm, at loose ends when you called.”  
  
“I see,” Cobb says inflectionlessly, and when Yusuf lets go of his wrist, Cobb catches Yusuf’s in his warm, iron-grip. His eyes are nearly too intense to be borne, but bear them Yusuf does, somehow.  
  
“Your pulse is racing,” Cobb notes. Then he’s up and out of bed, leaving behind only a ghost of his warmth.  
  


243 Hours

  
  
With the children out of the house, it seems to Yusuf that he and Cobb rattle around like dice in a cup.  
  
Dice that are avoiding each other for some reason.  
  
By noon, Yusuf’s finished with his work, and is reduced to playing with some Shrinky-Dinks James left in his room.  
  
 _My God, this is ridiculous,_  he thinks, suddenly stalking to his door. He opens it to find Cobb standing there, hand raised as if to knock.  
  
“Uh,” he says then grimaces. “Wanna . . . go to  _Spaulding’s_  for lunch?”  
  
“I’ll just get my jacket,” Yusuf replies with barely hidden relief.  
  


250 Hours

  
  
They’re doing the dinner dishes together, Yusuf washing, Cobb drying, when Yusuf gets up the nerve to ask:  
  
“What was she like, really?”  
  
Cobb doesn’t even pretend to not know what he’s talking about. “She was . . . smart, funny, beautiful, sweet . . . so  _vibrant_. I’ve never met anyone like her.”  
  
Yusuf nods in resignation, once more feeling like a fool. “She sounds like an amazing woman. You must miss her terribly.”  
  
“I do . . . but it gets better. Not  _good_ ,” Cobb adds. “At least not yet. But it’s definitely gotten better.”  
  
And despite Yusuf’s best efforts, a flicker of foolish hope is kindled.  
  


273 Hours

  
  
Cobb’s at a parent-teacher conference regarding Pip—nothing bad. In fact, Pip’s outstripping her peers academically, enough so that she may be allowed to skip third grade altogether—when the Brancato-Storrs stop by.  
  
“Your James has been talking with our Joey, telling us that you recently moved in with Dominic, and we just wanted to, you know, welcome you to the neighborhood!” Daniel Brancato enthuses then laughs. “And invite you over for dinner and gossip.”  
  
“Yeah, guys like us gotta stick together, right?” Julian Storr nods sagely, sliding an arm around Daniel’s waist.  
  
“Right,” Yusuf says delicately. “Guys like  _us_  . . . er, about that. . . .”  
  


274 Hours

  
  
Yusuf honestly can’t tell whether he’s managed to convince the Brancato-Storrs that he and Cobb aren’t a couple, but he gives it the old Eton try.  
  
He has a feeling, however, that his explanation that he’s merely helping Cobb with a project doesn’t go over very well. There are many shared glances between the pair that say things like _yeah, sure_  and  _uh-huh . . . riiiiiight_.  
  
In any event, when Cobb gets home, he’s so over the moon about Pip’s achievements that Yusuf doesn’t have the heart—or the balls—to tell him about the Brancato-Storrs’ visit yet.  
  
Or about dinner this Saturday.  
  


278 Hours

  
  
He and Cobb stay up late, drinking and watching old home movies of Pip and James.  
  
The further back they go, the more Mal appears in the videos, and she is indeed a vibrant woman.  
  
At first Cobb seems unaffected, simply explaining the history behind the movies—James’s first steps, Pip’s first words—and telling funny little anecdotes about his and Mal’s early parenthood trials.  
  
But by midnight, his eyes have gone a little red, and he’s doing more drinking and brooding than talking. . . .  
  
That night, Yusuf doesn’t have to use the serum at all. Cobb simply passes out right where he’s sitting.  
  


283 Hours

  
  
“Is daddy  _still asleep_?” Pip asks when she and James get to the kitchen to see Yusuf struggling with breakfast.  
  
“Your father is very tired, so I— _damnit!_ ” Yusuf accidentally drops an egg on the floor.  
  
James giggles. “You said a swear!”  
  
“No, I didn’t,” Yusuf says quellingly. “Come sit down, you two. It looks like  _I’ll_  be taking you to school, today.”  
  
The children share a glance then shrug, sitting at the table.  
  
They’re late to school, and Yusuf has to walk them in. He’s both surprised and not when Pip’s and James’s teachers seem to know who he is.  
  


287 Hours

  
  
By the time Cobb wakes, Yusuf’s preparing a brunch—practically lunch—of bologna and cheese sandwiches.  
  
Cobb shuffles into the kitchen, unshowered and unshaven, scratching at his stubble with one hand, and the other at the small of his back.  
  
“Couch could double as a torture device,” he grunts, heading straight for the coffeemaker. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”  
  
“Mmhm.” Yusuf says. Then: “We’re having dinner with the Brancato-Storrs this Saturday.”  
  
Cobb grunts  _’kay_ , and pours a mug of coffee. As he shuffles toward the table, Yusuf hands him his plate. Cobb grunts  _thanks_ , and sits and eats.  
  
Yusuf smiles to himself.  
  


294 Hours

  
  
After the movie—the latest installment of the  _Transformers_  saga—the four of them make their way back to Cobb’s car. James is yawning in his father’s arms, and Pip is walking with Yusuf, swinging his hand.  
  
“It’s okay, you know?” she says, tugging on Yusuf’s hand so he leans down. Yusuf smiles.  
  
“What’s okay, dear?”  
  
“If you and daddy are in love.”  
  
Yusuf blushes and clears his throat. “Er, Pip—“  
  
Pip grins wide. “It’s really okay. And I already told daddy it was, too.”  
  
Yusuf’s jaw drops, and he glances at Cobb and James, who’re waiting obliviously for them at the car.  
  


296 Hours

  
  
Cobb lies on his bed, smiling just a bit as Yusuf sits and swabs his arm.  
  
When Yusuf reaches for the vial and syringe on the night table, Cobb catches his wrist and looks into his eyes. “Aren’tcha gonna take my pulse?”  
  
Flustered, Yusuf blushes. “Right after you’re done taking mine,” he retorts. Cobb grins and lets go. Keeps grinning as Yusuf takes his wrist.  
  
“Hmm. It’s a little fast, but—what are you doing?” Yusuf practically squeaks as Cobb sits up and leans in close. . . .   
  
“Tonight I wanna try sleeping without the serum, okay?” He breathes on Yusuf’s lips.  
  
Yusuf nods.  
  


301 Hours

  
  
Yusuf fell asleep, which was entirely expected.  
  
He awakens in Cobb’s arms, which was also expected.  
  
Once more, there’s a thigh between his own, an erection poking against his arse, and another erection forming between his legs.  
  
Cobb’s beginning to stir, sighing in Yusuf’s hair. Yusuf turns to face Cobb, placing one hand on his hip and hitching a little closer, till his erection is nestled snugly against Cobb’s.  
  
When Cobb’s eyes finally open, he smiles sleepily and starts moving his hips. It  _feels_. . . .   
  
“Hey . . . hi,” Cobb murmurs, and Yusuf kisses him good morning . . . and good morning . . . and good morning.


End file.
